City Limits Fishing comes to Minneapolis

Watch a sneak preview of the show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7CC7hCkEYQ Bass angling professional Mike Iaconelli has his "City Limits Fishing" show on the Versus network and he does around six shows a year in a major metropolitan area. He's bass fished a ton of cities, gone deep sea fishing off the Miami coast and gone after other species in other cities around the country. It's a good show and reality-based in that he has only eight hours of fishing to try and get a limit as established by the host angler at the beginning of the show. He came to Minneapolis this past winter to shoot a show on the ice, and have his first time ice fishing ever (on or off camera). There was an angler from Chicago who was originally going to host but that didn't work out. I was called by the show's producer back in early December and asked to help out but couldn't due to my full-time gig. Iaconelli's producer found a local guide to do the show but then one of our monumental blizzards this winter shut the entire country down and they had to cancel the shoot. After they rescheduled the shoot and it didn't work for the other guy they came back to me and asked if I could. I had been kicking myself for passing it along and this time it worked into the schedule. Iaconelli, his producer and a cameraman from Florida arrived the night before we were to fish. Locally, a cameraman and one of my best friends, went along as well. There were two cameras on us at all times, one following Iaconelli and the other following me. My buddy drove the chase vehicle that provided some of the driving shots as we moved from place to place. When we filmed the show, there were only about 10 hours of sunlight and I had to choose an eight hour window to fish. I wanted to fish the sunrise, but knew that might not work out both for lighting and it's not the best way to introduce a bunch of rookies to the sport. I settled on fishing from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. to see if the evening bite would kick in earlier than usual for us and possibly pop a few panfish during the day or even a pike. We fished the morning and early afternoon on Calhoun and then hopped to Harriet for the end of day bite. The show is true to its deal. No canned fish. Nothing pre-rigged to look good for the camera. What you will see on the show is what happened true to the timing of how it happened. My only complaint is that while they say 8 hours of fishing, it works out to much less than that because of all the filming that has to be done a certain way to get the angles and perspectives they want for a cool, rapid-fire, kind of show. Let's just say we were on the ice for an hour before a single hook hit the water! It's a fishing show, but it's more a show about fishing opportunities in the middle of a city. Catching fish is good, and we caught lots of fish, but it's not your typical fishing show where "canned" fish are often the star of the show. That's the inside scoop. I don't know how much of that will come through in the show. I know none of what I just wrote will be in the press releases that are circulating about the show. It was a lot of fun. It was cool to do. I still say this was THE TOUGHEST bite I had all winter and it just had to be for national television! That's the luck but when I last spoke with the producer of the show he was absolutely giddy about the show. As a city kid, born and raised in South Minneapolis, riding my bike several miles to Nokomis and the Mississippi with my tackle box bungee corded to my bike and holding my fishing rod with my handle bars it was a great experience. Fishing in the city is a concept I believe in firmly and have written about a lot...I hope that it comes across on the show the way it was for Iaconelli and myself. We had a blast!

Ron Hustvedt is an outdoors writer and photographer who covers a broad array of experiences, individuals and events centered on hunting and fishing. He is also a professional educator. Please visit his website at www.WriteOutdoors.com.

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